Common factors between the two include pre-designed trading decisions, that both are used by professional traders who are observing market data in real-time and they use automated order submission and automated order management. Other common factors are that there is no human intervention and they access the market directly.

However, peculiar to AT is the fact that it is primarily agent trading, minimizing market impacts (for large orders) and these traders hold significant positions overnight and typically even for days, weeks or months, working an order through time and across markets.

By contrast, Eurex assesses the characteristics of HFT as

Proprietary trading

High number of orders, rapid order cancellation

Mainly spread and arbitrage income

No significant position at the end of a day (flat position)

Short holding periods, small margin per trade

Low latency requirement

Focus on highly liquid instruments

Eurex explains that it is difficult to make a conclusive definition of HFT, as it can be applied to a broad spectrum of strategie......................